The reason the fines exceed by orders of magnitude is because the previous fines haven't done shit to stop the violations. Besides, your fine isn't orders of magnitude. A billion dollar fine would be orders of magnitude. You got off lucky.

Somehow I doubt that Disk actually "respectfully" disagrees with the judgement. Im not really sure why but this has always bothered me. They fought this with a ton of time and money, there is no way they actually respect the decision. This is further shown because they are appealing it (which is to be expected). I know they cannot just come out and say that they think the judge has no idea what he is doing and decided the case wrong and they are going to take it over his head, but that is exactly what is going on. I would respect them a little more if they were actually honest.

As for the meat of the case, this is good, though it is one of the few cases where DNC violations are actually prosecutable (if that is even a word) since the vast majority of "Heather from account services" type calls are from ghosted VoIP numbers that are essentially untrackable, and often use spoofed/stolen outgoing numbers. All I can say i with Ooma I get none at home whatsoever, on my mobile I get two or three a day. Please when will something like NoMoRobo be available for mobile numbers?

Sorry. You hired the third parties to represent your company to potential and existing customers. You are responsible for their actions. Given that you received warnings for many years, you should have kept an eye on their actions on your behalf, but you did not. If you feel that you were wronged by the third parties, sue the third parties for damages. In no way should you be let off the hook as that would just be a convenient way for large companies to spin up shell companies (third parties), hire them, violate federal and state laws using the shell companies as proxies, and when the regulators and investigators start calling, dissolve them while claiming that you had no knowledge of wrongdoing.

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Yeah, these scam companies need to be fined into oblivion, with jail time for the people running them.

It's been interesting watching them try to evolve strategies to get past nomorobo. A lot of them are now using fake phone numbers with your area code and exchange, thinking, I guess, that will fool you into thinking a neighbor is calling. Somehow nomorobo still nabs most of them, but the remainder are, thanks to this stragedy, easy to spot and ignore. They usually hang up after two rings, too. I don't think they'll stick with this for long.

In answer to this article, dish used to do this all the time, and would immediately hang up if I asked them why they thought the DNC list didn't apply to them. It was likely resellers and not dish itself, but it was still Dish's fault for not policing their people properly. I hope they get a big fat fine, even if this is nowhere near the worst problem in telemarketing right now. It's just outright telescamming, and if you're doing illegal shit, you're not going to care about violating the DNC list terms too. I have won enough free cruises to never set foot on land again, apparently.

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Yeah, these scam companies need to be fined into oblivion, with jail time for the people running them.

It's been interesting watching them try to evolve strategies to get past nomorobo. A lot of them are now using fake phone numbers with your area code and exchange, thinking, I guess, that will fool you into thinking a neighbor is calling. Somehow nomorobo still nabs most of them, but the remainder are, thanks to this stragedy, easy to spot and ignore. They usually hang up after two rings, too. I don't think they'll stick with this for long.

In answer to this article, dish used to do this all the time, and would immediately hang up if I asked them why they thought the DNC list didn't apply to them. It was likely resellers and not dish itself, but it was still Dish's fault for not policing their people properly. I hope they get a big fat fine, even if this is nowhere near the worst problem in telemarketing right now. It's just outright telescamming, and if you're doing illegal shit, you're not going to care about violating the DNC list terms too. I have won enough free cruises to never set foot on land again, apparently.

I can confirm this. Been getting calls from my area code + my prefix + random last 4 digits, every week or two for years now. I never answer unless the caller is in my address book. Robocalls used to be from real numbers, and usually out of state and easy to spot, but now they just spoof a local number.

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Yeah, these scam companies need to be fined into oblivion, with jail time for the people running them.

It's been interesting watching them try to evolve strategies to get past nomorobo. A lot of them are now using fake phone numbers with your area code and exchange, thinking, I guess, that will fool you into thinking a neighbor is calling. Somehow nomorobo still nabs most of them, but the remainder are, thanks to this stragedy, easy to spot and ignore. They usually hang up after two rings, too. I don't think they'll stick with this for long.

In answer to this article, dish used to do this all the time, and would immediately hang up if I asked them why they thought the DNC list didn't apply to them. It was likely resellers and not dish itself, but it was still Dish's fault for not policing their people properly. I hope they get a big fat fine, even if this is nowhere near the worst problem in telemarketing right now. It's just outright telescamming, and if you're doing illegal shit, you're not going to care about violating the DNC list terms too. I have won enough free cruises to never set foot on land again, apparently.

I've solved this problem with a call screener bot that says, "If you know the extension number, please dial it now; otherwise, please press %RANDOM_DIGIT%. Only the given random digit, and no other, will work. Zero never works. Friends and welcome frequent callers bypass the hassle when their caller ID is recognized.

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Ohhh right, frickin' telemarketers pet aren't we.... What I wouldn't do to be spat upon by Heather...... I get "Rachel from card services....". Rachel sometime calls 2-3 times a day. Sometimes from different states thousands of miles apart... within a few minutes of each other. She must have a matter transporter system. I hear "there is nothing wrong with your card...". I have gotten to the point that unless I am expecting a call or they are in my (very limited) contacts I decline the calls. We have made a game of it where I work. My phone will ring and everybody guesses what state Rachel claims to be calling from. Winner gets a Euphoria chocolate truffle (Euphoria is the BEST chocolate!).

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Yeah, these scam companies need to be fined into oblivion, with jail time for the people running them.

It's been interesting watching them try to evolve strategies to get past nomorobo. A lot of them are now using fake phone numbers with your area code and exchange, thinking, I guess, that will fool you into thinking a neighbor is calling. Somehow nomorobo still nabs most of them, but the remainder are, thanks to this stragedy, easy to spot and ignore. They usually hang up after two rings, too. I don't think they'll stick with this for long.

In answer to this article, dish used to do this all the time, and would immediately hang up if I asked them why they thought the DNC list didn't apply to them. It was likely resellers and not dish itself, but it was still Dish's fault for not policing their people properly. I hope they get a big fat fine, even if this is nowhere near the worst problem in telemarketing right now. It's just outright telescamming, and if you're doing illegal shit, you're not going to care about violating the DNC list terms too. I have won enough free cruises to never set foot on land again, apparently.

I've solved this problem with a call screener bot that says, "If you know the extension number, please dial it now; otherwise, please press %RANDOM_DIGIT%. Only the given random digit, and no other, will work. Zero never works. Friends and welcome frequent callers bypass the hassle when their caller ID is recognized.

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Yeah, these scam companies need to be fined into oblivion, with jail time for the people running them.

It's been interesting watching them try to evolve strategies to get past nomorobo. A lot of them are now using fake phone numbers with your area code and exchange, thinking, I guess, that will fool you into thinking a neighbor is calling. Somehow nomorobo still nabs most of them, but the remainder are, thanks to this stragedy, easy to spot and ignore. They usually hang up after two rings, too. I don't think they'll stick with this for long.

In answer to this article, dish used to do this all the time, and would immediately hang up if I asked them why they thought the DNC list didn't apply to them. It was likely resellers and not dish itself, but it was still Dish's fault for not policing their people properly. I hope they get a big fat fine, even if this is nowhere near the worst problem in telemarketing right now. It's just outright telescamming, and if you're doing illegal shit, you're not going to care about violating the DNC list terms too. I have won enough free cruises to never set foot on land again, apparently.

I can confirm this. Been getting calls from my area code + my prefix + random last 4 digits, every week or two for years now. I never answer unless the caller is in my address book. Robocalls used to be from real numbers, and usually out of state and easy to spot, but now they just spoof a local number.

Actually, over the past six months or so, a large majority of the scam calls I see come in on my cell are, interestingly, coming from area codes where I make calls to (for work or personal) in other states. My mom lives in Florida in the winter, sis lives in Kentucky, I call clients in California and New Orleans, and friends in Wisconsin (I'm in Michigan). Very odd that I receive calls from those areas... Big Data/Brother, anyone?

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Yeah, these scam companies need to be fined into oblivion, with jail time for the people running them.

It's been interesting watching them try to evolve strategies to get past nomorobo. A lot of them are now using fake phone numbers with your area code and exchange, thinking, I guess, that will fool you into thinking a neighbor is calling. Somehow nomorobo still nabs most of them, but the remainder are, thanks to this stragedy, easy to spot and ignore. They usually hang up after two rings, too. I don't think they'll stick with this for long.

In answer to this article, dish used to do this all the time, and would immediately hang up if I asked them why they thought the DNC list didn't apply to them. It was likely resellers and not dish itself, but it was still Dish's fault for not policing their people properly. I hope they get a big fat fine, even if this is nowhere near the worst problem in telemarketing right now. It's just outright telescamming, and if you're doing illegal shit, you're not going to care about violating the DNC list terms too. I have won enough free cruises to never set foot on land again, apparently.

I've solved this problem with a call screener bot that says, "If you know the extension number, please dial it now; otherwise, please press %RANDOM_DIGIT%. Only the given random digit, and no other, will work. Zero never works. Friends and welcome frequent callers bypass the hassle when their caller ID is recognized.

Chuck you, Farley!

Is that an app? I would love that.

I built it myself, for my landline, but there are commercial screener boxen that do everything except randomize the digit. If a cell phone app can get caller ID and also answer a call, I think you could write something that would work, but that would be beyond my expertise. Are there iOS or Android people around?

This article made me go and recheck if I was still on the Do Not Call Registry.

Turns out I have been on that damn registry since 2012 and I feel like it makes no difference. I still get three to five calls a week from telemarketers or just some straight up scams. I have a blocked list of addresses on my phone that is a mile long now.

I like the fact that FTC has teeth to a point of huge fines for disobeying the order. Makes others notice. Though for me, I don't think I have been bothered by huge companies, but rather some jackasses who got a hold of my number somehow.

This article made me go and recheck if I was still on the Do Not Call Registry.

Turns out I have been on that damn registry since 2012 and I feel like it makes no difference. I still get three to five calls a week from telemarketers or just some straight up scams. I have a blocked list of addresses on my phone that is a mile long now.

I like the fact that FTC has teeth to a point of huge fines for disobeying the order. Makes others notice. Though for me, I don't think I have been bothered by huge companies, but rather some jackasses who got a hold of my number somehow.

Most of the calls now (at least the ones I get) are from offshore outfits that spoof numbers using internet calling protocols. They don't care about the do not call registry as they seem to be immune from prosecution.

Now if only they could get "Heather" from "account services" to stop calling me 3 times a week...

Yeah, these scam companies need to be fined into oblivion, with jail time for the people running them.

It's been interesting watching them try to evolve strategies to get past nomorobo. A lot of them are now using fake phone numbers with your area code and exchange, thinking, I guess, that will fool you into thinking a neighbor is calling. Somehow nomorobo still nabs most of them, but the remainder are, thanks to this stragedy, easy to spot and ignore. They usually hang up after two rings, too. I don't think they'll stick with this for long.

In answer to this article, dish used to do this all the time, and would immediately hang up if I asked them why they thought the DNC list didn't apply to them. It was likely resellers and not dish itself, but it was still Dish's fault for not policing their people properly. I hope they get a big fat fine, even if this is nowhere near the worst problem in telemarketing right now. It's just outright telescamming, and if you're doing illegal shit, you're not going to care about violating the DNC list terms too. I have won enough free cruises to never set foot on land again, apparently.

I've solved this problem with a call screener bot that says, "If you know the extension number, please dial it now; otherwise, please press %RANDOM_DIGIT%. Only the given random digit, and no other, will work. Zero never works. Friends and welcome frequent callers bypass the hassle when their caller ID is recognized.

Chuck you, Farley!

Is that an app? I would love that.

I built it myself, for my landline, but there are commercial screener boxen that do everything except randomize the digit. If a cell phone app can get caller ID and also answer a call, I think you could write something that would work, but that would be beyond my expertise. Are there iOS or Android people around?

I could be wrong, but I don't think iOS or Android apps can interact with the voice part of your phone. If you really wanted to do something like that, you'd probably have to either roll an Asterisk box, a PBX, or maybe do something with a forwarding service. (I'd love to see that as a feature on Google Voice.)

This article made me go and recheck if I was still on the Do Not Call Registry.

Turns out I have been on that damn registry since 2012 and I feel like it makes no difference. I still get three to five calls a week from telemarketers or just some straight up scams. I have a blocked list of addresses on my phone that is a mile long now.

I like the fact that FTC has teeth to a point of huge fines for disobeying the order. Makes others notice. Though for me, I don't think I have been bothered by huge companies, but rather some jackasses who got a hold of my number somehow.

The DNC list was made non-expiring some years ago. The calls you're getting are not from people who give a shit about the DNC list - they're scammers and not telemarketers. The latter, while still shit, do use the list, because they're big stationary targets.

This article made me go and recheck if I was still on the Do Not Call Registry.

Turns out I have been on that damn registry since 2012 and I feel like it makes no difference. I still get three to five calls a week from telemarketers or just some straight up scams. I have a blocked list of addresses on my phone that is a mile long now.

I like the fact that FTC has teeth to a point of huge fines for disobeying the order. Makes others notice. Though for me, I don't think I have been bothered by huge companies, but rather some jackasses who got a hold of my number somehow.

TCPA and DNC both need fines that increase dramatically after the first couple violations. Currently, each is capped at $1,000 per call. I think the fee for the second violation should be multiplied by 2x. Third violation, 10x. Fourth, 100x.

The biggest barrier to enforcement is that the fines are too paltry to justify hiring an attorney, subpoenaing the actual billing number for the calls, and tracing them back the source. If the judgments against repeat offenders were to quickly climb into the six figure range, suddenly it becomes worth persuing them. Honest mistakes would not be punished any more than they are already, and the companies who simply don't care would be risking some serious liability.

This article made me go and recheck if I was still on the Do Not Call Registry.

Turns out I have been on that damn registry since 2012 and I feel like it makes no difference. I still get three to five calls a week from telemarketers or just some straight up scams. I have a blocked list of addresses on my phone that is a mile long now.

I like the fact that FTC has teeth to a point of huge fines for disobeying the order. Makes others notice. Though for me, I don't think I have been bothered by huge companies, but rather some jackasses who got a hold of my number somehow.

TCPA and DNC both need fines that increase dramatically after the first couple violations. Currently, each is capped at $1,000 per call. I think the fee for the second violation should be multiplied by 2x. Third violation, 10x. Fourth, 100x.

The biggest barrier to enforcement is that the fines are too paltry to justify hiring an attorney, subpoenaing the actual billing number for the calls, and tracing them back the source. If the judgments against repeat offenders were to quickly climb into the six figure range, suddenly it becomes worth persuing them. Honest mistakes would not be punished any more than they are already, and the companies who simply don't care would be risking some serious liability.

Especially given how often the...fine goods and services... peddled by illicit spam calls are overtly fraudulent and calculated to deceive; why stick to civil penalties?

I recognize that my 'spammers aren't human, so how can they have rights?' interpretation is an idea that has yet to reach broad recognition; but given how much spamming is (attempted, not always successful) interstate wire fraud; there is ample justification for handing out years, potentially decades, of good solid federal prison time; even if the laws against spamming in itself are unfortunately weak.

Sorry. You hired the third parties to represent your company to potential and existing customers. You are responsible for their actions. Given that you received warnings for many years, you should have kept an eye on their actions on your behalf, but you did not. If you feel that you were wronged by the third parties, sue the third parties for damages. In no way should you be let off the hook as that would just be a convenient way for large companies to spin up shell companies (third parties), hire them, violate federal and state laws using the shell companies as proxies, and when the regulators and investigators start calling, dissolve them while claiming that you had no knowledge of wrongdoing.

Somehow I doubt that Disk actually "respectfully" disagrees with the judgement. Im not really sure why but this has always bothered me. They fought this with a ton of time and money, there is no way they actually respect the decision. This is further shown because they are appealing it (which is to be expected). I know they cannot just come out and say that they think the judge has no idea what he is doing and decided the case wrong and they are going to take it over his head, but that is exactly what is going on. I would respect them a little more if they were actually honest.

As for the meat of the case, this is good, though it is one of the few cases where DNC violations are actually prosecutable (if that is even a word) since the vast majority of "Heather from account services" type calls are from ghosted VoIP numbers that are essentially untrackable, and often use spoofed/stolen outgoing numbers. All I can say i with Ooma I get none at home whatsoever, on my mobile I get two or three a day. Please when will something like NoMoRobo be available for mobile numbers?

Not until metered calling is entirely a thing of the past.

My trick is to just not answer calls - unless they come from someone on my contacts list. My default ringtone is "silence" (yes, it's a sound file, that plays nothing over and over again). Everyone in my contacts list has a ringtone of some kind (family, friend, wife, professional contacts like doctors and clinics and some former clients who keep in touch).

Everything else is ignored. If they leave a message, I'll listen to it and either add the number to the contacts list, or reject it. If they don't leave a message, it's banned (added to rejected list).

It's easy to do, once you get used to it, and solves all the problems of unsolicited phone calls without resorting to further automation that may, or may not, work.

This article made me go and recheck if I was still on the Do Not Call Registry.

Turns out I have been on that damn registry since 2012 and I feel like it makes no difference. I still get three to five calls a week from telemarketers or just some straight up scams. I have a blocked list of addresses on my phone that is a mile long now.

I like the fact that FTC has teeth to a point of huge fines for disobeying the order. Makes others notice. Though for me, I don't think I have been bothered by huge companies, but rather some jackasses who got a hold of my number somehow.

The DNC list was made non-expiring some years ago. The calls you're getting are not from people who give a shit about the DNC list - they're scammers and not telemarketers. The latter, while still shit, do use the list, because they're big stationary targets.

AND they're most often blind-dialing, when NOT using a known gullible victims list.

Things like this make me feel terrible for the people being robo-dialed. I used to work for a boiler room of a call center, selling online advertising. What I witnessed there was frightening. 160 sales reps and myself were plugged into an auto-dialer, each calling roughly 100-150 customers a day. These customers were people who had simply signed up for a free online business listing, and it was our job to convert them to paid advertising. Naturally, many people hate sales calls, and they would inform us they were on the Do Not Call list and ask to not be called again. When someone said this, I quickly thanked them for their time and clicked the Do Not Call outcome button in the UI. Well after working there 3 months, I started to realize that button was just a sanity button. It didn't do anything. I'd notice accounts popping back into my dialer 3 or 4 days a week, sometimes even multiple times a day, and quickly hang up before the first ring. Other times I would notice a different rep finalize a sale with a customer that previously requested to not be called with me. After doing some research into laws, I asked my manager about our questionable business practices and why the Do Not Call button didn't actually do anything. I was quickly given an explanation saying because the customer initiated contact with the company, the company did not have to comply with the Do Not Call list. I was then promptly told to go sell some damn advertising. I quit after about 9 months of that soul-sucking hell hole of a job and still feel bad about all the people we dialed endlessly, and who are probably still in that database being dialed until they're forced to change numbers.

I could be wrong, but I don't think iOS or Android apps can interact with the voice part of your phone. If you really wanted to do something like that, you'd probably have to either roll an Asterisk box, a PBX, or maybe do something with a forwarding service. (I'd love to see that as a feature on Google Voice.)

I use an app called True Caller (for Android, it isn't possible in iOS) that matches up incoming calls against a list and sends blocked calls directly to voicemail (or busy if you don't have voicemail). You can use the built-in list and/or manually add numbers. I got it after getting the same spam call 3 times a day for 2 weeks and it definitely works.

I was actually going to write my own app to do this, but why bother when someone else already has?

I could be wrong, but I don't think iOS or Android apps can interact with the voice part of your phone. If you really wanted to do something like that, you'd probably have to either roll an Asterisk box, a PBX, or maybe do something with a forwarding service. (I'd love to see that as a feature on Google Voice.)

I use an app called True Caller (for Android, it isn't possible in iOS) that matches up incoming calls against a list and sends blocked calls directly to voicemail (or busy if you don't have voicemail). You can use the built-in list and/or manually add numbers. I got it after getting the same spam call 3 times a day for 2 weeks and it definitely works.

I was actually going to write my own app to do this, but why bother when someone else already has?

The last time my lovely s7 Edge Android phone updated its fine self, an app called "Hiya" had been magically incorporated into my phone app. Now when a scammer calls, the screen lights up in red and warns me "POSSIBLE SCAM". I can then easily add that number into my "block it" log with a tap. I will never see that number again if they call or try to message me. I'm getting far fewer spam and spam calls, maybe once a week vs the several times a day I used to get.

I don't know what scam and spam callers will do to overcome apps like Hiya, which seems to be crowd-sourcing an ever-growing log of spam phone numbers from its users.

I would love for cox cable to stop calling me, but with the current FCC head, they're just going to enter your home and pre install their equipment for maximum convenience. It will be protected by the new bill to be passed by this admin: business freedom.